Cast Into Darkness
by Jestie Uchiha
Summary: AU In which the Fellowship has fallen, and the Ring is returned to its one true master: In the ruins of Middle Earth, Eldarion, son of Aragorn, hears rumors of a plan to spread darkness and evil to the Undying Lands. So he sets off on a journey to find the elusive Istar from his mother's stories, Gandalf, who'd not been seen since the loss of the war, and to end Sauron's rein.


**Cast Into Darkness**

**A/n: **_Don't own Lotr_

**_Full Summary: _**_AU. __In which the Fellowship has fallen, and the Ring is returned to its one true master: The war has been lost, and the once great cities of men have been reduced to ruin. The elves have fled Middle Earth, the dwarves have hidden in their mines, and men struggle to survive- abandoned by the other races- a world ruled by orcs and other evil. But men are stubborn in their will to live, and even when under the oppression of Sauron they fight and cling to hope._

_When Eldarion, Son of Aragorn, hears rumors of a plan to spread Sauron's reign to the Undying Lands, Eldarion realizes that surviving is no longer enough. If left unhindered, Sauron will plunge the whole world into ruin, not just Middle Earth. So he sets off on a journey to find the elusive Istar from his mother's stories, Gandalf, who had not been seen since the loss of the war, and to bring down the Dark Lord while he's at it. It is to his belief that, if the Ring of Power had been cut off once, it can be cut off again.__  
><em>

**Prologue: What was Lost**

There were few places left in this world that held true beauty. And even fewer, still, that could be considered safe.

All throughout Middle Earth, the smell of death clung to the air; the familiar putrid reek of burnt flesh and decay ingrained so perfectly into the atmosphere that it was nearly impossible to imagine a time without it.

Smoke, from near-constant fires, darkened the sky with a terrible, inky blackness. Sunlight, unable to pierce through the murky haze of smoke, was scarce, and its absence made the already dark world seem darker.

What little there was left of nature was pitiful.

Grasslands resembled deserts; the once lush prairies withered and yellowed, almost nonexistent in the dead, dry ground.

Forests, if they weren't completely plowed over, consisted of leafless, deformed, and twisted trees- each as brittle and dead as the last. There was no dense shrubbery, only gnarled trees and the stumps of would-be trees.

Cities and towns alike were reduced to rubble- no former fortress or safety haven had been spared, be they Elvin or Man. In the end, each wall crumpled and each floor cracked.

If they were lucky, they remained rubble.

Because some cities… some cities bore new tenants, and new design. The great city of Rivendell, for instance, was darkened by evil, and overrun by orcs. In mockery of the Elves, whom had fled Middle Earth by sea and left behind the other races to endure this suffering, Sauron turned their once-upon-a-time sanctuary into one of his many citadels.

It would've been impossible for anyone to stop the destruction, so no one did. Those that tried always died. After all, if you weren't a slave, you were a fugitive struggling to survive. And it was already near impossible to avoid getting captured when every inch of the earth was crawling with hellish creatures- every nook and cranny teeming with vile urchins.

Rebellion was folly, outnumbered and outclassed as men were. The Dwarves, locked up in their most likely orc-infested mines, would offer no assistance, and the Hobbits were all but extinct.

It wasn't always like that.

Before Sauron had regained his Ring, the world had possessed an abundance of beauty, and conflicts were minor. For the most part, peace and tranquility had reined- certainly not perfect, for nothing ever truly was, but, still, a heaven compared to the world after the return of the Ring.

The races, even if they didn't all get along, didn't cause trouble for each other. Orcs had been scarce, and other evil creatures cowered and hid as they should.

The forests had been dense with foliage, the plains lush with life, and the cities standing tall and proud. There had been good in the world, yet. Beauty and hope had flourished, able to beat back the lurking darkness and misdeeds of the world.

Back then, the only truly ugly place had been Mordor. Now, if not for the unmistakable Black Gate, one could not tell where Mordor ended and the rest of Middle Earth began.

Middle Earth without Sauron had been truly wonderful.

At least, according to his mother, it had been. Eldarion had never known a life before Sauron; he'd grown up under his rein.

Everything he knew of the time before Sauron, he knew because of his mother, Arwen. Growing up, she'd told him grand stories of the times before the Fourth Age, stories of wars won and wars lost- of the history of Middle Earth.

Few still knew of what once was.

The most anyone nowadays knew was that after the fall of the Fellowship at the mouth of Mount Doom, the world fell into war. They knew that the war was lost, and that everyone now suffered for it, but they knew not much else.

Few knew that Eldarion's father had been one of the last of men remaining who resisted; that up until he died in battle and left Arwen- whom had chosen love over her people and was cursed to remain on Middle Earth for it- to take care of Eldarion, he had been a source of hope, and his fall marked the final blow for Man. Few knew how it all started in the first place- with a war and a Ring cut off by a king- or all that had happened leading up to the fateful fall of the Fellowship. Few even knew what the Fellowship was, why they had gathered, or what their purpose had been.

It was all important history, and it was history the Dark Lord and his forces remembered well, but that men had forgotten. What use was history, to them, when even the present was difficult to grasp?

When survival was a priority, education became a luxury not many remembered. Those most likely to have retained it from before the Fourth Age- such as scholars and soldiers- were killed in battle or turned into slaves.

The newer generations knew little more than how to hide and horde, speaking in Black Speech if they could speak at all. Eldarion was only just old enough to be considered an Old Generation- that is to say, only just old enough to have been born during the Third Age. With his youthful appearances and slow aging blood, however, he hardly looked it, and was often mistaken for a new generation.

Often, he used other's assumption that he was a new generation to his advantage. Old Generations generally didn't consider new generations a threat, and new generations only interacted to scrap for food. They were truly savages.

The worst part was, Sauron had only been in power for about three decades, and already the world was destroyed beyond repair.


End file.
